To the Moon and Back
by saphirice
Summary: When Charlie, by some chance, won the lottery and dragged three Winchesters with her on a trip around the world, she hadn't expected everything to go perfectly smooth, of course. But then Cas and Dean get tangled up in an epic gay romance, their "vacation" is frequently invaded by a renegade angel, and, well, things turn out to be a lot more exciting than previously anticipated.
1. Prologue

An ordinary morning in the bunker. That is, honestly, how it all started.

Charlie Bradbury had found an old twenty dollar bill in her jean pocket and figured, _why the hell not?_

She strode into the living room to her boys, whose eyes were all still half-lidded from the haze of sleep, and flaunted the note in their faces. "I'm going to win the lottery." she announced proudly, perfectly aware of how ridiculous she sounded.

Sam and Dean stared at her.

And then proceeded to burst into an eruptive fit of laughter.

Castiel was slightly more polite, choosing instead to eye her dubiously, a single eyebrow hitched. "You are aware that your chances of actually succeeding to do that are very, very slim, correct?"

"Well, yeah," Charlie huffed, "but it's Friday, and I don't have anything better to do, do I?"

Castiel frowned as Sam and Dean recovered from their outburst. "Well, no, I suppose not, I just wanted to make sure that you know you're only setting yourself up for disappointment."

Charlie rolled her eyes at him. "My chances are, like, a bajillion to one, I know. It's called fun, Cas. You should try it sometime."

"How can receiving a slip of paper possibly be considered-"

"You know what, forget it. I'm leaving. Laters!"

And then she was swinging open the front door, stepping into her car, revving the engine, and speeding off to the application building.

_This is stupid, _it occurred to her as she drove, _Cas is right. This is pointless._

And she was _this _close to turning around, because this _was _twenty valuable dollars she was wasting, after all. Twenty dollars she could use to...well. Do more productive things with. But she was already halfway to the building, and the Winchesters would laugh in her face even harder if she returned empty-handed. So Charlie kept driving.

As it turned out, her future self would hug her later.

X

The lottery building was, to say the least, an uncomfortable place to be. All around her was a mass of people sporting exquisite clothing, who surely didn't need any more money than they already had, and men with scraggly beards and rags for makeshift shirts and trousers. People who had permanent frowns indented on their faces and ice-cold eyes; plump, old ladies with inhuman merry little smiles.

She felt like the the only normal civilian there. Which was saying a lot, considering the fact that she lived with two brothers who hunted monsters for a living and their fallen angel.

When Charlie finally moved up enough in the line to reach the entry booth, she smiled politely and presented the twenty dollars. "Hi," she said, "my name is, uh, Melissa Barring, and I would like to enter the lottery."

"I'm gonna need to see your driver's license, phone number, and address, kid." the woman in the booth grunted.

Charlie produced the items, possibly with a bit of prior help from Sam and Dean for the fakes, and handed them to the lady, who squinted at them suspiciously. Charlie shifted nervously where she stood, praying that she wouldn't notice. She breathed a sigh of relief when the woman began to poke at a keyboard and print out a small slip of paper.

Charlie took it from her, scanning over it only once, before grinning and pushing her way back through the crowds of people.

X

When Charlie got home, it was relatively quiet.

Then came the whispers coming from the projection room; a pair of irritated voices. She heard the words "Castiel" and "admit it" and smirked, already knowing what the two were arguing about. Her and Sam had been talking about it just yesterday morning.

She entered the room, still grinning, interrupting the dispute between the brothers. "He's right, y'know." she said. "You should really just grow a pair and-" That's as far as she got before Dean groaned loudly in frustration and left the room.

Sam and Charlie could only barely restrain their laughter when Dean let out a mewl of surprise when he collided with Cas, who was opening the door, on his way out.

Once they were both gone, Charlie set her chin in her hands and sighed. "They're perfect for each other, aren't they?"

Sam gave a lopsided grin. "Yeah. They've just been through so much, you know? It makes sense. And they deserve to be happy."

"Oh, and they'd _totally _be one of those couples who hold hands during sex."

Sam's smile quickly turned into a grimace. "Charlie, _please. _These are my _brother's _genitals we're talking about here."

Charlie shrugged uncaringly. "Just sayin'. Hey, I'm pretty hungry. Want me to make you something too?"

Sam shook his head. "Nah, I'm good. I think Dean was hungry, though."

When she got to the kitchen, though, Dean was already there, biting into a sandwich. "So," he said between mouthfuls, "how about that lottery ticket?"

Charlie pulled said ticket from her pocket and presented it proudly.

Dean snorted a laugh. "Yeah, well, good luck with that."

Charlie took a bag of chips from the pantry and called "Love you too, Dean." over her shoulder as she left the kitchen. She plopped down on the couch and clicked on the TV, deciding that a Game of Thrones marathon sounded pretty good for the rest of the day.

X

Dean woke up early on a morning a few months later to an elated scream coming from upstairs. He groaned and shoved his face deeper into his pillow, but it was to no avail, as the loud noises persisted until he was forced to drag his ass out of bed and see what the hell Charlie was doing up there.

He trudged his way up the staircase and pounded on her bedroom door. It flew open, and out popped the squealing redhead, who flung her arms around his neck, nearly choking him in the process. "Charlie-what the hell-"

She only flashed her phone at him in response.

And then, after a few gaping moments of disbelief, Dean was laughing ecstatically too, bringing Charlie back into his arms and hugging her tightly.

"Dean? Charlie? What-" came the graveled voice as it escalated the stairs. It was interrupted when Dean and Charlie both extended an arm and forcefully tugged a disgruntled Cas into a group hug. He grunted in slight pain, but made no attempt at escape, as he knew it would be a fruitless effort.

The staircase groaned with weight for the last time when Sam popped his bedraggled head in. "Geez, you guys sound like you won the lottery up here or something."

"Actually," Charlie replied, handing him her phone, "you're pretty spot-on."

Sam's eyes widened and he almost dropped the small device.

Cas peered at the screen too, and he grinned delightedly at Charlie.

"Congrats, Charlie." Sam said, still looking like he couldn't quite believe it. "What are you planning on doing with all the money?"

Charlie smiled slyly at him. "Oh, I'm not spending it all on myself, of course."

"Oh, so charity? That's really sweet, Charlie-"

"We, my boys, are going on vacation."

When said boys didn't respond as enthusiastically as she had expected, her smile faltered.

"Aw, c'mon, nothing? I thought you guys would be all over this."

"Charlie," Sam sighed, "look, it's really nice of you to offer and everything, but we can't exactly just drop everything we're doing and 'take a break' from hunting for a while. It follows us everywhere we go, no matter what, trust me."

Charlie frowned. "It'll only be a few months. You aren't the only hunters in America."

"I, for one, think it's a great idea." Cas said.

"_Thank _you." Charlie beamed, patting Cas on the shoulder.

"But Sam is correct." he continued. "On the rare occasion that one of the Winchesters do try to give up hunting...well. It generally doesn't end well."

Charlie sighed. "I'm not talking about giving up anything here, guys. I'm talking about spending a few months-like, three, at the most-together. As a family. A family who will finally have the chance to _relax _for once without having to worry about a guillotine that could slice down on their necks at any given moment."

The other three considered this, and Dean asked, "And where are you planning on taking us, exactly?"

Charlie was grinning stupidly again, eyes glittering with excitement. "Everywhere."

"Everywhere?"

"Yeah! Dude, I just _won the fucking lottery. _So I was thinking that it would be cool if we could go global together. Travel the world."

Sam bit his lip in contemplation. "Dean? What do you think?"

"Eh, I guess I'm game. Hopefully the world will be ok without Winchester Bros and co. looking after it for at least a few months, right?"

Sam nodded and turned to Cas. "What do you think?"

Cas thought for a moment, then gave one of those little Cas smiles: the ones that were really only visible if you were paying close attention. "I'm...game."

Sam spun around to face Charlie. "Ok, looks like you've swayed us."

Charlie cheered and enveloped him in yet another hug.

"Thanks, guys, you won't regret it, I promise. This is going to be _awesome._"

Sam chuckled when she released him. "Yeah, yeah. So, are there any plans yet? Where are we going? When?"

Charlie tapped his nose and tsked. "Patience, Sam. I kind of wanted to start in New York, so in a couple of weeks, we'll fly over there?"

Dean shuffled nervously where he stood. "Are you sure we couldn't just...y'know...drive there?"

"We could drive there," Castiel informed him helpfully, "but if Charlie plans on taking us to different countries, I think it would be rather difficult to drive a car across the ocean."

Dean breathed in deeply. "Right. Ok. We'll take a bunch of flying death cylinders across the world. Sounds fun."

"Aw, Dean." Charlie mocked. "You'll be ok. One of us will sit next to you and hold your wittle hand. Cas, you'd do that for him, right?"

Sam rolled his eyes and elbowed Charlie in the ribs, but she ignored him and focused on Dean and Cas's reaction like a ravenous fangirl analyzing every nanosecond of her ship's eye contact.

Cas merely blinked at her and intoned, "I am willing to do anything to ensure that Dean will not die of an anxiety attack."

Dean's eyes flickered from Cas to Charlie and back, unsure where to land them, until he finally decided on the floorboards. And he was, decisively, _not _blushing.

"Yep." Charlie muttered under her breathe, inaudibly enough so no one could hear her. "_Totally _my OTP." And then, louder, "All righty, then! Now shoo, go back to bed."

The other three descended the staircase, and since Sam's room was right at the bottom of it, he slipped in through the door and closed it behind him, flicking off the lights.

After he was gone, Dean plopped himself on a couch in the living room that was conveniently placed in front of a TV.

"Aren't you going to bed?" Cas asked, and Dean shrugged in response, picking up a remote and flipping through the channels. Castiel continued to stand in the middle of the room, looking like he didn't quite know what to do with his feet.

Dean looked at him and huffed a laugh. "If you're not tired either, you can come sit next to me, if you want." And _wow ok that sounded a lot more gay than originally intended. _

Cas, to his credit, didn't seem to care, and took the other side of the couch.

"Anything you want to watch in particular?" Dean asked him, and Cas shook his head.

"No, I hate television."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Well, you didn't have to come sit with me."

Castiel looked at his feet, a light red staining his cheeks that was obvious even through the TV-illuminated darkness. _Castiel, _almighty ex-Angel of the Lord, was _blushing._ "I know. I just like spending time with you."

And, yet again, he left Dean at a total loss for words, so he coughed and deliberately ignored what felt like a little hummingbird thrumming excitedly in his chest.

And cute was most _definitely _not the first word that surfaced in Dean's mind when Cas yawned softly and bunched up a blanket in his sweatpant-clad lap, eyelids drooping slightly.

Just watching him (not that that was what Dean was doing, of course) reminded Dean of his own fatigue, and falling asleep where he was was and awful idea, but at that point he didn't even really care about the consequences, and drifted off to sleep with Cas a constant, warm presence next to him.

X

"Oh my God. Charlie, come look at this."

"Wha-oh my God. Sam. Sam, go get my camera."

"Uh, here, take my phone."

_Click!_

"We're never going to let them live this down, are we?"

A laugh. "Nope."

Dean groaned at rubbed at his eyes, snuggling closer to the warmth next to him...who was she? He didn't even remember going to any bars or picking anyone up last night. The only thing he remembered was...

Oh.

Oh yeah.

Ans within that single second, Dean was fully awake, flailing off the couch and bringing Cas down with him, who grunted with pain and cracked his eyes open. They widened when he found Dean next to him, both tangled in the blanket and each other's limbs.

Sam and Charlie, meanwhile, were doubled over in laughter, and Dean glared at them murderously while he and Cas attempted to disentangle themselves from each other.

"Well," Sam managed through bursts of chittered laughter, "at least they're both still wearing their clothes."

Dean was extremely tempted to throw his brother off the Empire State Building the second they got to NYC. Just like old times.

Instead, he finally succeeded to separate himself from Castiel and the blanket, and, after a long chain of vulgarities, announced that he needed to take a shower.

"Ohh," Charlie said, "I bet you do."

More vulgarities.

X

Within the next week, Charlie took herself through the normal I-just-won-the-lottery procedures, signing her ticket and doing bank account stuff. Thankfully, because of the fake name and address, she never had to deal with hoards of swarming people like most who won the lottery did.

Then it was time to plan this luxury vacation. So one evening she sat down with a notepad and a Sam, and by the time the night was through, she had a list that looked something like this:

1. NYC

2. England

3. Italy

4. Brazil-This is when we'll shove Dean and Cas's dicks together if they're not fucking by now (and then, in much more aggressive handwriting) CHARLIE STOP OR I SWEAR TO GOD.

5. Mexico

6. France

7. Russia

8. Japan

After whiting out the Brazil comments at Sam's insistence, she showed the list to Dean and Cas, who both nodded at it appreciatively and said it sounded fun.

Cas graciously offered to be their translator, seeing as he knew all the 4,000+ languages ever to be invented by humankind, which cleared a main problem from the equation, the other one being currency issues, which they were all sure could be sorted out with little difficulty.

And so they booked their plane tickets, packed their bags, and wondered with a timorous kind of glee what the next eleven weeks held.


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: So this, ah, took me a while to write. In my defense, it's like five thousand words longer than the first chapter/prologue thingy, and I'm a spectacularly slow writer.**

**Also, I forgot to mention, this whole thing takes place about six months or so after the season 8 finale, and Charlie was living with them because why thehell not.**

X Monday X

"Dean, if you ask if we can take the Impala one more time I will hurt you."

But Dean ignored her, pacing across the marble tiles of the airport.

He looked at Sam, who was talking to the gate agent. Sam flashed him a mocking thumbs-up. Dean flicked him off.

Cas placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and surprisingly, the warmth actually did something to calm the nerves scampering anxiously through his body. It must have been a fallen angel thing.

...Yeah, definitely a fallen angel thing.

"Dean," Cas said, "there is nothing to worry about. Do you know how many planes actually crashed last year?"

"Uh, one or two?"

"No, only thirteen. We'll be fine."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, thanks Cas, that's real reassuring."

They were interrupted by a monotonous female voice from the overhead telling them that their gate number was ready to board.

Dean decisively did _not_ panic when he felt Cas's hand leave his shoulder, and instead took his little plane suitcase and followed his companions _calmly _through the tunnel that surely wouldn't lead to his death.

When they were actually on the plane, Dean took his place by his brother's side. "I'm next to you." It wasn't a question.

"Uh, no, the seating arrangement says you're sitting next to _Cas,_" Charlie said, coming up from behind them.

"We're all in the same party, does it really-"

Charlie pursed her lips. "Yes."

Sam huffed a laugh. "Well, Dean, sorry."

"Yeah, yeah." Dean grumbled in reply, scanning the crowd for Cas's dark hair. He spotted it and sat next to him, crossing his arms unhappily.

They sat in silence for a few moments, listening only to the low, constant hum of the engines and the chattering of people, until Cas said, "I've never actually flown in a plane before. Is it really as fear-inducing as you seem to think it is?"

Dean tightened his arms around his chest, harboring no desire to talk about this. Because it _was _ridiculous, right? He was a hunter; most were more afraid of paranormal activity than they were planes. "Most people aren't afraid of flying. I, uh, kind of have this fear of heights. You should be fine though. I mean, you used to fly everywhere, right?"

Castiel nodded. "A fear of heights must be inconvenient for hunting."

Dean shrugged. "Eh, most hunting can be done on the ground. But I've run into a few situations like that, yeah. They aren't fun. What about you? Isn't flying gonna trigger some kind of nostalgia or something?"

Castiel's lips slipped down slightly. "I didn't think about that." His gaze flickered to the window briefly, and then returned to meet Dean's. "It might, yes."

After a few minutes of inactivity, the engines' sound grew louder, and the plane began to inch forward. Instinctively, Dean's hand flew out to grasp the one nearest to it.

"Oh," said Castiel in muted surprise, looking at their conjoined hands. "I thought Charlie had been kidding about that."

"She was," Dean snapped, snatching his hand away.

"It's probably anticipation," Cas explained helpfully, "that's got you worried. Once we're off, it isn't scary. The feeling is quite exhilarating, really."

Was that...?

No. No, it couldn't be. _There was no fucking way_.

And Dean was horrified, disgusted, _terrified _when his dick gave a sharp twinge of interest.

_No, _he told it, _Nonono. I'm not going to pop a boner on a plane. And definitely not for fucking _Castiel.

He was so worried about taming himself below the belt that he didn't even notice that the plane had taken off.

After taking off his jacket and folding it cleverly in his lap, he made the famous mistake of looking out the window, and saw the wispy puffs of white floating past them. His lungs clenched, inappropriate erection long forgotten when the plane trembled slightly.

"Dean," Cas said.

"What?"

Cas shut the window and turned to look at him. "Why are you afraid of heights?"

Dean shook his head. "I don't know, man. I've been ripped apart by hellhounds, right? But planes-_fuck!" _His point was lucidly illustrated when the plane shook again.

"Well," Cas said, "I read somewhere that closing your eyes and pretending that you're on a large bus can help."

"Where the hell did you read that?"

"Somewhere."

Dean rolled his eyes, but decided it wouldn't hurt to try. So he shut his eyes and pretended that there was a road under them instead of the vast expanse of the sky; that they were rolling along the ground instead of floating above virtually nothing, where if they were to break down-yeah, ok, not helping.

Castiel seemed to be totally unaffected; no nostalgia evident. Then again, Castiel was _Castiel_, so who knew what was going on in that funny little head of his.

X

Two hours came and went, and soon they were collecting their bags from the top rack and inching along towards the front of the plane. Dean let out a puff of relief the second his feet met with the concrete.

"Wait here," Charlie said when they got to the baggage claim. "I'll go get our stuff."

"Should I go rent a car?" Sam offered, and Charlie shook her head.

"Nah, we're in New York! Calling cabs is all part of the experience." She left, and the remaining trio sat in the chairs that were placed near the entrance, shivering slightly whenever someone opened the door and let in a cool draft of air.

When Charlie got back, they called a taxi and gathered their things.

Their hotel, which was smack in the middle of Times Square, was five-star, and for the first time that Dean could remember, they all had their own separate rooms.

It was...different. A bit overwhelming, really. All their lives Sam and Dean had watched cockroaches scamper across the ceilings of crappy motels, and the second Dean laid eyes on the marbled counters, spotless white walls, leather furniture, and satin sheets, well. He kept expecting a ghost to pop out of the cabinets, just to balance everything out.

No vengeful spirits tore out his throat, though, and the second Dean decided to test out the mattress he decided that he really, _really _loved Charlie. Seriously. Dean briefly wondered where in the world it would be considered socially acceptable to marry a bed.

Dean fell asleep within two seconds of taking off his jacket and jeans and getting comfortable.

But, alas, he was very _rudely _awoken by a harsh knocking at his door. When he didn't respond, it grew louder and more persistent. "I'm comin', relax!" he called groggily.

"Sam and Cas and I are hanging out in my room, and we were wondering if you wanted to join us!"

"Does it look like I want to?"

"I can't see you, Dean. There's a great deal of cement separating us. And a door."

"Smartass." He knew _deep in his soul _that Charlie was not asking him if he wanted to spend the rest of the day with them, and if he said no, she would give him hell for it.

He told Charlie he'd be out in a minute and reluctantly got out of his flawless bed, pulling his jeans back on and sliding his key card into his pocket before making his way to Charlie's room.

He knocked on the door, waited for a beat, and then it opened, revealing a grinning Charlie. "Hiya, Dean. We were just talking about you."

"Wonderful," Dean sighed. It figured they would find a way to gossip about him in the five minutes that it took him to get to the room. "Do I even want to know?"

Charlie clucked her tongue. "Probably not."

"Didn't think so," Dean grumbled, scanning the room for a place to sit. On an off-white velvety loveseat was Sam, and Castiel was seated at the dining table, hands clasped in his lap.

"So," Dean said, taking the spot beside Sam. "What're you guys even doing in here?"

Sam shrugged. "Charlie brought some movies she wanted to watch, and she asked Cas and I if we wanted to watch them with her. We weren't originally gonna wake you up, but obviously Charlie changed her mind." He gestured to the depowered TV and said, "We haven't started yet, but do you want to stay?"

"Do I have to?"

"It's no _fun_ if the whole family's not here," Charlie insisted.

They didn't actually end up even looking at the flatscreen television, though. Instead, they spent the time just talking, trading stories and such.

"Oh, _man," _Dean wheezed, clapping his brother's shoulder. "You should have seen 'im! We went to Publix just for a quick supply run, right? But then Mr. Loreal here spent _half a freaking hour _pacing up and down the hair product isle, looking like a fucking kid in a candy store!"

"I had a date the next night, jerk!" Sam said, shoving Dean away. But he was laughing too; even Cas was chuckling softly.

"Don't be ashamed, Sam," Charlie crooned, "If I was into dick, I would _totally _be attracted to your fabulous hair."

"Ngh," Dean groaned, "am I literally the only human being on this planet who wants to take a pair of clippers and snip it all off his head?"

"Don't you dare," Sam warned, hugging his head protectively.

"I think it looks fairly ridiculous," Cas piped up from his table. "It's true that man was predestined to be hairy, and while Sam has a lot of hair, it's more feminine-looking than anything else."

Dean beamed at him. "Well, that's great. Cas, one night you and I will sneak into Sammy's room with a pair of scissors, sound good?"

Castiel nodded, facial expression gone totally serious.

"I hate all of you!" Sam wailed, flinging a pillow at Cas, who caught it with ease and hurled it back at full speed in Sam's face, resulting in a satisfying _ploof!_

Dean and Charlie whistled while Sam extracted the pillow from his face and glared murderously at all three of them.

And lo, the quartet fell into a very serious, very perilous pillow fight, the permanent steel bands that were clamped around all their chests loosening _just _a little bit.

X Tuesday X

The first thing Charlie wanted to do, of course, was go shopping.

Now it wasn't as if this was particularly a _bad _thing. Times Square was actually kind of beautiful once you got past the urbanized noises and mechanical puffs of smoke. There was a blizzard of activity surrounding them; people talked endlessly, car engines whirred, and impossibly tall monstrous buildings towered above them. What was along the streets ranged from little hole-in-the-wall antique shops to big, flamboyantly colorful chain malls.

The four were walking rather aimlessly, simply exploring what lower Manhattan had to offer. The sun was in the center of the afternoon sky, but there was a pleasant chill in the air, and even in the hot mass of bodies, it warded off the heat so it wouldn't become unbearable.

But one of the most amazing things, Dean would begrudgingly admit, was Castiel. His eyes were constantly flickering everywhere, unsure of what to land on, irises a lively blue that held the shine of a curious child. He was wearing his old trench coat get-up, and it hit Dean that they should probably get him some clothes while they were here. As of current, Cas would frequently wear a mesh of Dean and Sam's clothes, but the guy deserved to not be living out of someone else's wardrobe.

When he mentioned this to Charlie, she smiled and dragged them all into a men's department store.

"Alright," she said to Cas, pushing him towards the racks of clothing. "Have fun, and try not to get lost."

Cas got lost.

Or, at least, he seemed to be, refusing to move any further than were Charlie had shoved him to and casting his friends a look of confusion. "This store is very large," he stated, "and I haven't done this before."

Charlie laughed and turned to Sam and Dean. "Ok, guys, let's go help our angel discover his inner fashionista."

Sam and Dean actually ended up just kind of tagging along like lost puppies while Charlie led Cas, who now had several fabrics draped across his arm, through the seemingly endless sea of clothes. Every once in a while she would point at an article and Cas would either shake his head or nod eagerly. Eventually, they ended up having to send Sam back to get an actual cart, and by the time they reached the checkout, the contents of it were a half-full pile of primarily blue, black, and white (there were also quite a few pastels and sunsetty colors, but Dean refused to acknowledge those).

They left the store toting several large plastic bags, even more so than Charlie usually left a store with, and decided they were hungry. There was a nice-looking cafe on the way back to their rental car (yes, Sam and Dean demanded that they not take taxis everywhere). They would drop their stuff off at the car and get some food, and then walk in the direction opposite of which they started from.

The cafe was a cozy place with milky blue walls and glass tables. Their waitress was a bouncy young blonde with dark chocolate eyes, and when she delivered their pizza, she left her number scrawled on the receipt she gave Dean.

Cas, who was sitting next to him, sighed and said, "Must you be interested in fornication everywhere we go?"

And he wasn't quite sure why it did what it did, but Dean's heart lodged in his throat and throbbed painfully. "Nah," he said, balling up the small slip of paper and hurling it successfully into the trashcan. "It isn't something I'm in the mood for as of late, y'know?"

Castiel said softly, "No, still a virgin, remember?"

Dean choked on his coffee. Charlie helpfully rose from her seat and patted his back.

"Wait," Dean said, "you've been on this planet for, what, four years since we last talked about this, and you still haven't...?"

"You've talked about this?" Sam spluttered. Dean shot him the infamous "Sammy shut up" glare.

Cas laughed quietly. "I still haven't had the occasion, so that would be a no."

"Dude, you're missing out."

"No, I don't think I am," Cas said thoughtfully. "As much as you may laugh at me for it, I don't think it could truly be enjoyable for me if it was with some random man or woman I met at a bar on the side of the road. I've never been able to figure out the appeal that you obviously see in it."

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know, I mean, it's quick, you know? No strings attached. It feels good, and then it's done. It's been a damn long time since it's been for feelings or any of that crap."

Someone from across the table coughed.

"Should Sam and I leave, or...?" Charlie asked, and Dean felt his face flush (no,it didn't flush, he _did not blush)_, absently stabbing at his food with a plastic fork.

X

"Ah, man, did you _see _that cashier?" Charlie raved. The sun was a blaze of orange hanging low in the sky now, and Charlie had had to buy a jacket when the temperature sank with it. And Dean would admit that the girl manning the register _was _pretty attractive. "I should've asked her her number or something. I mean, glasses, long legs, black wavy hair, LotR T-shirt? I'm an idiot."

Sam laughed. "So, why didn't you?"

Charlie sighed melodramatically, breath coming out as a wispy fog in the chilled air. "We're only here for like a week, right? I have better things to do than hot people. Like this bookstore right here." She swerved suddenly into a small bookshop, complete with that musty book smell and dust-choked air.

Well, Sam and Cas certainly seemed right at home. Dean just sort of circled around the shelves aimlessly, until Cas came up to him with a brown, leather-covered journal. "Why is this blank?" he asked.

Dean laughed. "It's a journal, Cas. You write stuff in it. Like feelings or reports of the day or whatever."

Cas smiled. "I like the idea of that. The human mindset can prove to be extremely difficult to organize."

Dean's lip quirked up. "Yeah, they can be useful. You should get it."

"I should."

Sam had gotten a book on Celtic myths ("We're going to Europe next week, right?") and Charlie left empty-handed ("I just like the feel of bookstores, is that so wrong?"), and so did Dean (obviously).

They subsequently headed for a restaurant that was, honestly, a bit too fancy for Dean's taste the same way the hotel room was. The food was orgasmically good, though, so he wasn't complaining.

After they were full, Sam and Charlie stayed behind to put the remainder of the food in boxes and pay the final bill, so Dean and Cas stepped outside to wait for them.

The second they were outside, Cas's eyes brightened. "Oh, Dean, this is..."

And Dean was just as amazed. Never in his like had he seen so many _colors_.

Dusk was long since gone, and while the skies were black, the streets were quite the opposite. Multihued lights flashed and blinked and swirled on nearly every building, and while Sam and Dean had been to New York once with John as kids, they never got to actually _see _anything.

When Sam and Charlie joined them and had their respectable reactions, they made their way back to the car to go to the hotel. The day had been great and everything, but Dean was _exhausted, _and quite honestly, the lit up city seemed to get less and less interesting the more and more he thought about his impossibly perfect bed.

X Wednesday X

Since the weather was so damn near perfect the next day, Sam, Dean, Charlie, and Cas collectively decided that Central Park was worth a day spent.

They went out at around lunch time with several bags of food and a blanket and settled down in the grassy field to eat. It was a cheery place to be, really; children squealed as they chased after frisbees and kites, dogs barked, and adults chittered good-naturedly.

They food was perfect, too (they had picked up some sandwiches and a pie from the cafe they had gone to yesterday), and the four happily inhaled it. Well, the four of them excluding Cas, who was picking at his pie crust like he was planning on feeding pigeons with it.

"Dude," Dean said, "you gonna eat that or not?"

Cas sighed and pushed his plate over to Dean, who grinned delightedly and proceeded to violently stab his fork into the pastry.

"Dean?" Sam asked. "Can I talk to you?"

Dean swiped his tongue across his lip to remove the bit of cream that clung there-which Charlie may or may not have caught Cas scanning every nanosecond of-and nodded. The brothers walked a good several feet from where they were established and began to talk in hushed tones. This talk quickly escalated into a verbally violent argument.

Charlie watched them and tsked. "They really just can't get along, can they?" Cas ignored her, staring off into his own personal little universe. "Cas?"

Cas jumped slightly, cleared his throat and said, "Yes, but that's just the way they are. I sincerely doubt they'll ever change."

Charlie narrowed his eyes at him. "What's up with you? You've hardly said a word or eaten since we got here. Instead, you've chosen to ignore us and make a hamster home out of pie." She looked pointedly towards the nicely sized pile of cinnamon-coated crumbs.

"I'm not ignoring you. And I _am _eating."

Charlie crossed her arms adamantly. "Speak, Castiel."

Cas stared at her pleadingly, but when Charlie hitched an eyebrow expectantly, he sighed, giving up. "I suppose you're a trustworthy person to talk to about this, anyway."

Charlie beamed triumphantly and swirled her wrist in a "go on" gesture.

"I've...I...human emotions are very hard to differentiate from each other, and I'm still learning, but I think I'm certain about this." He glanced over to Sam and Dean, who were no longer arguing but laughing merrily. Typical. "I think I'm in love with Dean."

Charlie's throat clenched up, her pace quickened, and an unmistakable feeling blossomed in her chest. _The confirmation of an OTP._

Or half of it, at least.

Charlie calmed herself and chuckled. "You said that like it's a bad thing."

"It _is! _Dean is...Dean isn't...he likes women, Charlie. And in case it wasn't already obvious, I lack those certain parts. And I shouldn't, I mean, our friendship would be irreparably abolished if he found out, but I _do_." He exhaled distressfully, running a hand through his hair.

"Ah, man, you've got it bad." Charlie laughed, and Cas glared at her, clearly not finding it funny. "Now listen to me," she lectured, "I'm like ninety percent sure Dean's just as smitten."

Cas's eyes widened. "But-"

"Shut up and let me finish. Dean, well...Dean's kind of special. Unfortunately for you and me, he's about as emotionally aware as a trash bag. That is to say, he probably doesn't even realize how crazy he is for you."

"And how do you know-"

"I can _see _it, Cas. And Sam told me about everything you've been through. Did you know he freaking slept with that trench coat of yours one night after you 'died'?"

Castiel shook his head.

"Yeah. And I got the man himself to tell me a little bit. He un-brainwashed you with the power o' love, huh?"

Cas tilted his head. "Did he actually say-"

"No, but that's what it seemed like to me."

They saw Sam and Dean begin to make their way back, and Charlie leaned over and whispered, "Oh, and by the way, Dean's pretty physical, right? So it wouldn't hurt to try and...you know..." She gestured randomly in the air around her, hoping Cas would get the point.

He didn't. He tilted his head at her.

"_Flirt, _Cas." And imagine that, she was telling an angel (fallen angel, whatever) to up his sex appeal. Ah, well, she'd done worse in roleplaying chat rooms. "It's gonna be hard for Deano to deny his feelings for you when he's jerking off to those pretty blue eyes of yours every night and coming with your name on his lips."

Castiel went beet red at that last comment, and when Dean sat next to him suddenly, he freaking _squeaked. _

Charlie winked at him, mouthing "Do it."

Cas stared back helplessly.

Dean, noticing Cas's scarlet complexion, looked at Charlie and sighed, "What did you say to him?"

"Oh, nothing," Charlie sang innocently.

Dean looked from Charlie to Cas and back to Charlie and rolled his eyes, figuring that he probably wasn't getting any answers.

"So," Charlie said, "what were you and Sam brotherly bonding over?"

Dean shrugged indifferently. "It wasn't anything big."

"Don't worry about it," Sam added.

Charlie squinted at them, clearly not buying it. "Uh...huh."

Because that was usually Winchester language for "The fucking apocalypse is upon us."

X

When they went to walk through the park, Dean decided that New York was actually one of the most aesthetically pleasing places he'd been to in a while. First with Times Square, and now the four were strolling through some kind of magical fairy tale courtyard. Seriously. Lush greenery flourished everywhere, the afternoon sunlight burnishing their leaves. The trees were a canopy above them, and the occasional brightly-colored bird flit past them, chirping out its cheery brightly-colored bird song. Squirrels flagged their tails at them as they passed, and butterflies fluttered lazily in their path, and cats...actually, Dean wasn't sure if there were supposed to be many cats there.

And yet, from the overgrowth emerged a sleek gray feline with effervescently green eyes that shone audibly even from the distance. It eyed them with an almost human-like look of distrust, and then proceeded to place itself right in their line of motion.

Dean huffed in annoyance and went to scare it away, but it refused to budge, looking up at him, unfazed.

So Dean tried picking up a pebble and hurling it at it, but he could practically _feel _the disapproving glares of his companions searing holes into his back, and let the stone fall from his hand, grumbling a curse.

Nothing happened. Which was, actually, surprising. Because, even from the distance, Dean _should _have been sneezing his guts out by now, but no, his nostrils remained clear and completely allergy-free.

"Can't we just walk _around _the cat like normal people?" he heard an exasperated Charlie say from somewhere behind him.

Dean stood up, saying nothing. There was just something _off _about this whole thing.

"Look," Charlie continued, "I think it's great that you've somehow managed to make a rivalry with a friggin cat, but can we please get going?"

"No," came Cas's reply, "there's something wrong here."

Oh, good. So Dean _wasn't _going completely fucking insane.

"Something wrong," Sam chimed in, "with...a cat? It's a cat. Looks pretty normal to me."

Castiel went to stand by Dean and therefore in front of the cat, and he crouched, leaning in and studying the gray-furred feline intently.

He looked like an idiot like that, and Dean briefly wondered what would happen if someone were to just walk by right then.

Something _did _happen, and when Cas stood up suddenly with such force that he fell flat on his back and looked ahead with a mixed look of confusion, curiosity, and fear, Sam and Charlie rushed forward to help him up.

When Dean flicked his gaze to the source of Cas's sudden fit, all he managed to vocalize was a soft "Holy shit."

Smack in the middle of the cat's forehead was a small, glowing pearl of green, a black slit inside of it contracting and dilating to adjust to the sunlight.

The fucking cat had fucking three eyes.

And, of course, they had all their weapons back at the hotel.

Dean checked to make sure Cas had gotten up alright and slowly walked backwards, gesturing for the other three to do the same.

The cat cocked its head, flicked its tail, and mewled. It got up off its haunches and padded over to rub against Castiel's leg.

Cas, to his credit, remained relatively calm, stationing himself still and watching the cat nervously.

And then, as if things couldn't get any weirder, the cat leaped up and _stayed _there, paddling its way through the air to stand on Cas's shoulder.

"Uh," Charlie said, and laughed a trill note of anxiety. "We should probably get out of here. Like, now.

"We should probably find a way to kill it," Dean corrected. "Cas, you ok?"

Cas turned his head-slowly-and nodded.

Dean fleetingly wondered if it was truly a coincidence that no one was coming down their path, or if the cat also had freaky mind powers. It wouldn't be terribly surprising.

"It doesn't seem to mean any harm," Castiel informed them, hesitantly placing a hand on the back of the feline's neck.

"Cas, don't-" Sam began to warn, but Cas was smiling now as the cat closed its eyes and leaned insistently into the touch, demanding more attention.

"Cas!" Dean shouted. "_Whatthefuckareyoudoingdon'ttouchit." _

Castiel rolled his eyes at him-_Castiel was rolling his eyes-_and stroked the cat's back defiantly. "Are you afraid of a cat, Dean?"

"Uh, three-eyed ones with floaty powers? Generally, yeah." And Dean was like ninety-eight percent sure at that point that the cat had mind-whammied his friend.

"Amma," Castiel murmured.

Charlie turned and blinked at him. "Huh?"

"Cursed," he elaborated, "in Enochian."

"Yeah," Charlie said, "_Cursed. _Which probably means we should get rid of it and _leave._"

Sam bit his lip. "If you guys could distract it for a while, I could drive back to the hotel and grab a gun."

"Nobody's killing anything," Castiel said with such authority in his voice the the other three stopped arguing and turned to listen to him. "It's a supernatural mutation, but it still has the mindset of a housecat. It will not hurt us."

"And _how _do you know this?" Charlie asked.

"Because, now that I've thought about it, this has happened before. I've never experienced it personally, but...Gabriel used to like to mess with DNA structures." He looked wistfully out into the distance like in one of those overly dramatic TV shows you would find on CW. It _was _kind of depressing, though. Dean was sure that Gabriel and Castiel had never been particularly close, but Cas had told him once that Gabe was really the closest to a sibling that Cas had ever had.

"It'll die soon anyway," he continued."The conflictions in their genes don't allow them to live very long."

Dean had seen _a lot _in his hunting days, but this...this had to win some kind of award.

The cat descended from Cas's shoulder and floated to the ground, apparently losing interest in him because it subsequently disappeared back into the bushes.

Sam frowned. "Are you sure it can just wander around like that?"

Castiel nodded slowly. "I told you, it'll die soon on its own anyway."

Sam stared at the greenery. "And nobody will find the body and take it to a research center or something?"

"They might." Castiel was staring at the bush now, too, and he seemed distressed about the whole thing.

Then he started walking, in his happy-colored pale yellow shirt and jeans.

Sam, Charlie, and Dean exchanged a look and followed him.

X Thursday X

"I would really just rather-"

"Cas, shut up. You're coming."

But that was just it, really. Castiel didn't want to go this this infamous little bar ("The Little Branch") so he could watch Dean get drunk and pick up some girl who _wasn't him _and bring her to his room and come because of her and _not him. _

And they were planning on being out for the rest of the night, which equaled more drinking, which equaled the inevitable.

But the three were adamant, and besides, it was important that Castiel get himself out of this mindset that his feelings might ever be reciprocated.

So he went with them.

Now, it wasn't as if the bar wasn't nice, because it was, all dimly-lit and silk tablecloths. But it wasn't even five minutes after they got a table that Dean had a woman pawing at his arm after he left to order their drinks.

Castiel suddenly took great interest in the corner of the table.

"Cas," Charlie hissed from across him, "look."

He shook his head. "I saw, Charlie. It's ok."

"_No, _Cas," Charlie insisted. "_Look._"

When he sighed and obliged, he thought that it might had been the best thing he'd seen all day.

Because Dean was turning away from her, not even _a little bit _of prior flirting, and beginning to walk back to the table, nursing only one beer.

Sam, who was next to Charlie, said, "Cas, I know my brother. And that? That's pretty strange. Just...give him time, ok?"

That's what Charlie had said.

But waiting was, decisively, one of the hardest aspects of humanity.

Especially when it was for something that was probably never going to happen in the first place.

Dean finally reached them and sat next to Cas, and Charlie hitched an eyebrow. "Where are our drinks?"

Dean shrugged. "That girl was being a creep. The only real way to get rid of her was to abort."

Sam's eyebrow was nearly at his hairline. "You? Rejecting someone-a very _attractive _someone-outright?"

"Newsflash, Sammy, I'm not always in the mood for sex."

"Mhmm," Sam intoned. "Cas, do you want to go get our drinks?"

Castiel nodded and shuffled off.

And then _the same girl _was pouncing on him-God, how desperate can you be?-and purring into his ear, clothed so sparingly it wouldn't have made much difference if she was naked. Cas looked at her nervously, making a few fruitless attempts to shrug her off his arm as politely as possible, but she would just _not leave_. Now she was running her fingers up and down his forearm, practically _licking _at his earlobe.

Dean didn't see this whole ordeal, and he probably wouldn't have, either, if Sam hadn't announced loudly, "Oh, wow, it looks like Cas might get lucky tonight."

Charlie stared at him for a moment, confused by how Sam could say something so ignorant. But then Sam winked at her, and when she saw Dean blanch and tighten his grip around his glass when he whipped his head in Cas's direction, it clicked together in her head.

"Oh, yeah, you're right," she said, playing along. "Well, good for hi-wait. Does he have a condom with him?"

Dean swallowed, staring at the tablecloth with a searing intensity.

Sam clucked his tongue. "No, but a girl like that? I'll guarantee she keeps a pack of 'em in her back pocket."

Charlie made a tsking sound and said, "Yeah, you're right. It's a shame that Cas's first time will be completely meaningless and with some random girl he doesn't know."

Dean's glass fell and shattered across the floor.

"You know what?" Dean said, voice trembling slightly. "Now that Cas is human, he might, uh, y'know, have hearing issues. I'd better go and make sure he heard our orders correctly."

"We only ordered beers," Sam said, tone teasing. "It's not that complicated."

"Right, well, you never know."

He left, and when Sam and Charlie watched him shove the girl away from Cas, they burst into a hysterical fit of laughter.

"Oh, man," Sam wheezed, "that was great."

X

Dean didn't really know what he was doing, or _why _he was doing it, but he did know that he _really didn't fucking like what was happening there. _

He gently nudged (or, at least, that's what he liked to think he did) the girl away and turned to Cas. "Hey," he said, trying to sound as undistressed as possible.

And, again, he didn't even know why he was so distressed in the first place. It wasn't as if hehad been the one wanting wanting to deflower-_fuck. _

"Oh, good," Castiel said, puffing a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

Dean blinked. "Thank you for what?"

"For getting rid of her. I...I'm not very experienced in handling these kind of situations."

Dean huffed a laugh. "Yeah, well, get used to it. You weren't exactly beat with the ugly stick." Well, it _was _true. "Everyone back there thought you were gonna get laid."

"Oh," said Castiel, sounding surprised.

"Anyways. Drinks?"

X Friday X

Friday was sightseeing day. Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, and whatever else tickled their fancy.

Lady Liberty was first, and while Dean found it all a bit boring (as he probably would all the other places), the other three were enjoying themselves, so he was too. Plus, just being in their company was nice. And besides the psycho cat Cas was weirdly attached to, it was a relief to finally be able to breathe without worrying about monsters ambushing them. Charlie had been right.

The rest the day proved to be just as uneventful as Dean had expected it to. It was, however, successful in sapping him of all his energy. By the time they got back to the hotel, it was only 7:00, but the four happily disappeared into their respective rooms to check out for the night.

Dean fell asleep the moment he hit the sheets he was so utterly exhausted. Which was why he was not particularly pleased when someone shook him awake a few hours later.

"Fuck off, Sam," he grumbled, sluggishly hurling a pillow in the general direction of the intruding voice.

"Not Sam," came the sighed reply.

Dean cracked an eye open. "Cas?"

"That would be my name, yes."

"What d'ya want?"

Castiel frowned and broke eye contact. "I'm sorry for waking you up for something you'll probably find unimportant, but-"

"Wait, so you're dragging me from my _very comfortable _pillow for something I'm not even going to care about?'

"...Essentially, yes. But I couldn't sleep, and Sam told me once that talking about stress was a good way to clear your mind."

"So you want to talk? Why not wake up Sam? Or Charlie? And the doors are key card activated, how did you even get in here?"

"I...I wanted to talk to _you. _As for the door, you left the card in the scanner. You must've forgotten it in your eagerness to go to sleep." He pointedly placed the card on Dean's bedside table. "Either way, the cat died. I found it on the floor of my room."

It took Dean a few moments to process this. "And _how _did the cat get into your room?"

"I'm...not sure."

"What the hell is up with you and it, anyway?"

Castiel, who had been standing awkwardly at the side of the bed, finally sat down, facing Dean with his legs crossed Indian-style. His hair was a dark, mussed mess (even more so than usual) and his 4 o'clock shadow was sharply pronounced in the moonlight that streamed into the room through the window. He was wearing black sweats and a matching T-shirt, wich made him difficult to distinguish from the darkness of the room.

"I felt bad for it. I told you, they don't tend to live for very long," Castiel explained, "and it isn't its fault. It just doesn't seem _fair, _Dean. It doesn't seem _fair _that things can die. That they have a set timer that's ticking away, even if they did nothing wrong. A man can have a heart of gold and build orphanages and give money to homeless people on the street and die at twenty because of a heart attack, while a serial killer can live his life to the fullest."

"Hey," Dean said, trying to dissipate the sleep-induced gruffness from his voice and replace it with sincerity. "They all go to Heaven though, right? Even if they didn't deserve to die?"

The room went completely silent for an eternity. Then came the quiet, "I'm not going to Heaven, Dean."

And suddenly this wasn't about a fucking cat anymore, this was about Dean's best friend (and maybe, _maybe, _his totally inappropriate crush) being torn from his family, his home, _everything that he was._ He had actually been waiting for a breakdown like this. There was no way in hell someone could go through that and be "fine."

But Dean didn't know what the hell he was supposed to say. The worst part was that it was probably true, Cas had done a lot of shit up in Heaven.

He saw the silhouette of Cas's shoulders shake, and when he clicked on the dim lamp on the bedside table, Cas was _crying. _

And now Dean was completely fucking lost, because he didn't know how he was supposed to handle this. This might have even been the first time Cas had cried. This idea was confirmed when Cas touched the area under his eye and looked at the wetness on the pad of his finger disdainfully.

"I'm sorry," he said, regret staining his voice. "I should never have expected you to burden yourself with my problems."

He started to get up, sniffling softly, but Dean's hand flew without his permission to capture Cas's wrist and force him to sit back down.

"Hey," he said gently, "that's what I'm here for, alright? You need someone to talk to, you come to me." That was really all he _could _do to help with whatever Cas was dealing with. His hate for heart-to-hearts be damned; he owed Cas this.

Castiel nodded weakly. "Can I..." He met Dean's gaze weakly, eyes still red-rimmed, and Dean understood immediately just by the pathetic brokenness of Cas's expression.

His immediate thought was _don't, Dean. Do. Not. _But his hummingbird was back, thrumming excitedly and pecking at his ribs.

He didn't fucking care if he was probably going to regret it in the morning. He used his hold on Cas's wrist to pull him to him so they were a short inch apart, still not able to get over how Castiel-the man before him had killed and led wars and used to hold an infinite amount of power that Dean couldn't even begin to fathom-looked so _vulnerable. _

Dean could hardly suppress the sudden, all-consuming urge to press his lips to the soft, wet, slightly-parted ones in front of him. _He wanted to kiss Castiel._

And it terrified him.

Ground down his bones and constricted his throat; the barriers around his heart reinforced themselves and begged him not to take them down.

He tore his eyes from Castiel's lips with such difficulty that he could've sworn he heard the rip. He couldn't do it. Not even with the way the blue of Cas's eyes were tainted with disappointment when they made eye contact again.

No, Dean took the cowardly approach and hugged the fallen angel instead. Castiel immediately took Dean into the iron trap of his arms and sobbed into his shoulder.

Dean didn't know how long they stayed like that, holding each other until Cas's cries slowly transcended into stifled snuffles.

"You can, uh," Dean said haphazardly. "You can stay the night in here, if you want. These beds are pretty big."

Cas glanced at him when they parted. "No," he said quietly, "I think I'll go back to my own room."

As he watched him leave, Dean tried to convince himself that the feeling bubbling in his gut wasn't dejection.

X Saturday X

Saturday was, for lack of a better word, boring. They spent it lounging in each other's rooms and eating unhealthy things, finally getting the chance to watch that movie Charlie had brought along.

As they watched it, Castiel caught Dean's eye and mouthed, "Thank you."

Dean's hummingbird could go fuck itself.

X Sunday X

It was their last day in New York and, quite frankly, it was entirely anticlimactic. They didn't do anything especially special or any of that; it was mostly spent like their Saturday was, annoying each other and planning next week.

"So," Sam said. Him and Dean were driving to pick up some lunch from a Five Guys. "It happened again, huh?"

Dean glanced at him from the driver's seat. "What happened again?"

"I was coming back from the lobby a couple nights ago-the vending machine's down there-and I saw Cas go into your room."

Dean's grip tightened around the steering wheel. "And what are you suggesting?"

"I'm not suggesting anything. It's just...I do remember Miami, Dean."

Dean grit his teeth together. He remembered Isaac, a 7-11 cashier from the city they were staying in. They hadn't had sex or anything-to this day, Dean had never had sex with another guy-but it was still one of the more confusing bits of his adolescence. They were making out in the motel room, and John and Sam were _supposed _to be gone until late, but apparently they got done early. And in swung the door.

"I know Dad gave you hell for it," Sam continued, and Dean really wished he would just shut up, "but it's ok."

"I know it's ok," Dean said, "but that doesn't mean I'm gonna become a floral bouquet designer and start going to Adam Lambert concerts. And fuck, Sammy, we're talking about _Cas _here! There is no fucking way I'd ever..." Friday night came rushing over him, how Dean could have very easily just leaned forward and licked into Cas's mou-"There is no fucking way I'd ever fuck him."

"Just be careful, ok? You're supposed to turn here."

Dean steered in the direction his brother directed him to, subject successfully changed, but not forgotten.


	3. Chapter 2

Gabriel crossed his arms, nearly irate now, when the receptionist informed him that "The people you're looking for aren't currently residing here, sorry, sir."

_Oh, that's all right, _he thought bitterly. _Five hotels down, only about five trillion more to go. Damn, how many does London even have? _And that was assuming, of course, that they used their real names at the check-in. Which was a far-fetched possibility to say the least.

He _could _sense it, though. They were here, in this city, somewhere. Probably even enjoying a nice cuppa while he worked his ass off trying to find them.

Big Ben chimed somewhere in the distance, announcing that it was noon. He had started at, what, 9:00? Ok, so he had only been on his mission for like three hours. He had plenty of time before they left England to go somewhere else, if they were following the same pattern that they had with New York; staying in one place for a week and moving on.

But if he _didn't _succeed in finding them before the week was over, he was going to kill something. It had taken six and a half fucking months to scrounge up enough money from his job as a charming waiter at a small restaurant in France where he fell to be able to afford a plane ticket, not to mention the nightly motel cost.

He owned a small pastry shop over in the same area, too. The previous owner had been so desperate to get rid of it for whatever reason that he had given Gabriel the keys to the building for free. He shaped up the old place considerably and renamed it and everything, (_Gabriel's Candy Gluttony) _and he actually _liked _working there. He liked inventing chocolates, and he might also like the smokey-eyed, vibrantly energetic brunette that was his co-owner. Elodie had promised to take over for him while he went to "Deal with an old issue."

But even with the sweets shop, he was damn near broke, and he had a moment of silence for the depressing lack of wings on his back.

A girl's hair suddenly began to fall in clumps out of her scalp as Gabriel passed her on the sidewalk.

Well, at least he still had the mojo.

As he watched her scream and attract attention and chaos around her, Gabriel stopped suddenly, grinning at the idea that began to situate itself in his mind.

It was obvious that it was going to be a while until he found Sam, Dean, and Cas, so why not let them find him?

X Monday X

"I'm fucking serious guys, next time we are taking a _cruise _to wherever we're going next. I'm never going to get used to this."

"You say that," Castiel replied, "but you were significantly calmer this time than you were last week. I'm sure you'll adjust eventually."

Dean was grumbling something unintelligible when Charlie appeared, toting their baggages and smiling broadly as she led her friends to their new rental car. Straight into the heart of London they drove, pulling up to a hotel that was considerable less extravagant than the last. Castiel thought he saw a young man treading angrily out the front doors, a man who coincidentally happened to have caramel-brown hair that tapered out into upturned tufts at the ends and was unfortunately all too familiar, but no, he had to have been imagining it. Plus, it was nearly eleven at night, so everything was blanketed in darkness. Still, he couldn't help but crane his head as far as it would go as they passed the suspicious figure.

"Cas," Sam said, jolting him out of his thoughts. "You ok? Did you see something? You look like you just saw a ghost."

_I have. _"Thank you, Sam, I'm fine. And no, I must have imagined it." Charlie nudged him from where she sat beside him, eyebrows arched, but Cas shook his head at her.

Another man came out to take their things and park their car, so the four moved on to the front desk and retrieved the keys they had priorly booked. They separated after that, because it was surprising how fatigue-inducing sitting in a plane seat for eight hours could be.

To Dean's delight, the rooms weren't too fanciful, instead holding a more casual feel. Castiel didn't personally mind either way, but he could easily understand how it could unnerve Dean.

He closed the door behind him and went to pull back the curtains of the windows, humming in contentment when the nighttime view of the city greeted him, not unlike New York.

While sunlight was bright and lively and wonderful, Castiel found that night was proving to be his favorite time of the day. There was something about the way the world seemed to hush itself, and the how the darkness never failed to invoke a feeling of peace from him.

He glanced at the emptiness of the too-large bed, thinking of only one thing that could make him love them more.

X Tuesday X

It was on Tuesday that Dean learned Charlie's taste in music was a very dangerous weapon.

He and Charlie had bet on who could down shots the quickest, and the end prize was being able to pick the music for the ride on the way to the London Eye area later that night, able to blast it as loud as the winner may like. Dean, at first, claimed that the contest was unfair, as he was sure to win, but Charlie insisted, and eventually Dean gave in. But by the time Dean had slammed his last glass on the table triumphantly, he looked across from him to see Charlie leaning back in her chair, the glasses in front of her empty.

"B-but," he sputtered. "That's impossible! You cheated!"

"Sorry, Dean, but I guess you're less superior than a twenty-eight year old woman in the realms of alcohol," Sam had snickered, meeting Charlie's hand for a high-five.

So Charlie won the bet, and Dean begrudgingly allowed an iPod dock to be installed in the car (yeah, it was a rental car, but if the owner got pissed, they had the money to assuage him).

She was driving (another part of the agreement) with Dean in the passenger seat and Sam and Cas in the back, and at the first stoplight she smiled foxily and scrolled through her iPod. Carrie Underwood bellowed-and that was no understatement-from the speakers, the country-based instrumentals completely filling the car.

"Kill me now," Dean groaned, doubting his ability to stand an hour of this.

"_You better take it from me, that boy is like a disease. You're running, you're trying, you're trying to hide, and you're wondering why you can't get free," _Carrie sang in response.

When the song hit its chorus for the first time, Dean admitted that the song wasn't actually all _that _bad, even when Charlie felt the need to add her own vocalizations to it.

"_He's a good time cowboy Casanova, leaning up against the record machiiiine!" _she wailed.

It was the second time the chorus crooned from the speakers that Dean noticed when Carrie, Charlie, and _Sam, _the traitor, sang something about blue eyes.

The rogue mental images that sprang to the forefront of his mind were utterly, completely, _wholly _unwelcomed, and he shifted in his seat, uncomfortable.

"Dean?" Cas inquired, leaning forward so his cheek brushed Dean's shoulder. Dean bit his lip and tried very hard not to think.

(But it was to no avail.)

The music came to an abrupt stop, and was promptly replaced with Sam and Charlie's eruptive laughter.

"It worked!" Charlie cried. "I can't believe it actually worked!"

"_What?" _Dean demanded.

"Tell you what, Dean," Charlie said, wiping wetness from her eyes. "We'll rent _Brokeback Mountain _sometime this week, and then you'll have twothings that get you hot in one nice little package, hmm?"

She and Sam started laughing again, Dean internally scolded the heat rising up his neck, and Castiel just looked confused by the whole ordeal.

X

They didn't actually even make it to London Eye. And no, it wasn't because Charlie's music was deathly.

As they drove, they saw swarms of people run the opposite direction, scrambling after each other in the dark.

"What the fu..." Dean murmured, gesturing for Charlie to stop the car. They all stepped out and scanned the surroundings, spotting a flash of multihued lights from around the corner. They broke into a run and skidded around the side of a building, stopping blatantly at what they found.

There was another building there, across the street, and it was on fire. Fire that flickered from an organic orange to a not-so-organic green to blue to purple to black to white to orange again.

Fire engines whirred from somewhere in the distance, police pushing apart the four of them and ordering them to stand back, trying to keep their law-enforcing composure but slacking a little. Dean didn't blame them; if he knew nothing of the supernatural, he'd be terrified, too. The firefighters and their lengthy hoses were led to the front of the building where they sprayed, but even as more and more water spurted into the fire, the flames remained, licking at the sky, mocking them. The firefighters shouted panicked commands at each other, and there was a news reporter, too, gesturing wildly toward the fire for a camera's blinking red light.

"Charlie, Cas," Dean hissed from where they were pressed up against the wall; it wasn't too hard to hide from everyone when the paranormal fire had their attention. "Go back to the car and get the EMF meter. We'll check this place out later. Some guns, too, if you can be inconspicuous." That last part wouldn't be too hard. Cas was wearing _the _coat.

The two nodded and took off, the fire getting no smaller when they returned with the requested items.

A strange thing happened then. The fire stopped.

Just.

_Stopped, _and while a moment ago Dean had been squinting from the sheer brightness of the blaze, now he was blinking his eyes rapidly to get them adjusted to the abrupt darkness. Nearby streetlamps illuminated the fact that the building, which looked like an old abandoned warehouse, was left completely whole and unscathed.

The police and firefighters stood there for a few minutes, and Dean could nearly hear the gears turning in their heads as they tried to process the whole thing. Hell, he was pretty confused himself.

Then a few of them gasped and pointed at the sky, and when Dean followed their gaze, he muttered a burned out curse.

Because there, painted across the sky, were Northern Lights.

And Dean had always been really fucking awful at geography, but he was pretty sure those weren't supposed to appear in England.

Well, so much for this whole trip being a break from their occupations.

Police and the others slowly began to pack up again once the Lights faded back out, blundering after each other in shock and confusion.

The quartet waited until they set up the police tape and left, and then they snuck (although that was unnecessary, because there wasn't anybody else around) into the warehouse. Castiel took out the weapons from where they were buried in his trench coat and distributed them appropriately, handing the EMF to Dean. They cautiously walked the whole warehouse, but the meter didn't even twitch, and nothing ever popped out and jumped them, so the guns proved to be useless, too.

"We should sleep on it," Sam suggested, "and investigate again tomorrow."

"That won't change anything," Dean said. "I don't really think there's anything we _can _do right now. I say we just leave it for now, and see what comes up."

The other three were happy to comply to that, so they put their things back in the trunk and drove to the hotel.

X

They were gathered in Charlie's room, watching the news. The popular theory seemed to be that it was all a prank; some really skilled guy playing an illusion.

"That's impossible." Castiel shook his head. "That fire was expelling excessive amounts of radiant and thermal energy; there's no possible way it was an illusion. And it's fairly difficult to project something that clear."

Dean shrugged. "Sure, but a lot of times people will believe things if it makes them feel secure about their fragile little world."

"But doesn't that ignorance put them in even more danger?"

"Generally, yeah, but if you haven't noticed by now, humans are all idiots."

"No you aren't," Castiel responded defensively, as if he was appalled by the idea that Dean would think that of his own. "You are the most intelligent creatures on Earth, out of all the other trillion. It's remarkable, the things you've done and created." He smiled. "You are just very ignorant sometimes, that's all."

"We," Dean reminded him, and regretted it the second it left his mouth. Castiel looked at him for a moment, not unkindly, but in the way that had pain written all over it in subliminal text. "Shit, wait, I'm sorry," Dean spluttered, but Cas shook his head.

"It's fine, Dean. You're right, I need to get myself in that mindset. It's fine."

Charlie and Sam, who had meanwhile been in a loud and enthusiastic conversation, were hushed now, glancing over at the other two uncomfortably, feeling as if they had intruded on something.

A tight tension wound its way around the room, suffocating them all until the woman on the TV announced that the same Northern Lights had recently been spotted _inside_ the British Museum.

Dean cleared his throat and said, "Alright, so we'll go there tomorrow then."

"Maybe only half of us should go there, and the other half can go double-check the warehouse," Charlie suggested

"I'll go to the museum," Cas offered, and Sam nodded.

"Yeah, I'll go with him, and you and Dean can check out the fire."

"Good." Charlie stood up. "We should probably go get some sleep now, huh?"

X Wednesday X

"So. Um. Are you hungry or anything?"

"I could eat something small, yes," Castiel replied, still staring dazedly out the window as London whizzed past them. The uncomfortable, elapsed silence settled over them again, broken only when Sam pulled into a McDonald's and ordered them some food. Sam stole a few glances at Cas (who was now sipping placatingly on a milkshake) as he drove, trying to figure out a way to shake the weird feeling.

It was all terribly awkward, and Sam fleetingly wished that Dean were here, too. Cas was his brother's territory, not his.

But on the other hand, Sam was also kind of grateful for the chance to spend time with Castiel. They weren't super close or anything, not like Cas and Dean, but that didn't mean Sam didn't want to try and have a better relationship with the guy.

So far, Operation Let's be BFFs with Cas was proving to be a complete bust.

But still, at least Sam hadn't stabbed Castiel in the chest when he first met him, which had to count for something, right?

"We are friends, Sam," Castiel said, as if he could read him, startling Sam out of his train of thought.

Sam smiled at him, not dishonestly. "Yeah, Cas, I know." And he believed it, too. Cas had done a lot for him. "I'll never be Dean and I get that, but I'm glad for it."

Cas smiled, but then he actually processed those words, and his lips tilted downwards again. "I don't favor Dean over you," he defended, and Sam could hear the lie.

He rolled his eyes. "Hey, I'm not upset by it. You're in love with him, I get it."

Castiel smiled like a crush-happy schoolboy at his lap. "I am," he said softly.

Sam chuckled. "Well, I love my brother too and everything, but I've got to say, that's pretty bad luck," he teased.

Castiel laughed then, an honest to God belly laugh that Sam wasn't sure he'd heard before. It made him happy. "I know," Cas said.

The rest of the way to the museum wasn't as awkward after that; the ice had been broken. The two talked animatedly for the next half hour, and when they pulled into the British Museum, they were still laughing about a particularly awful advertisement that had come up on the radio.

"You probably can't bring that in there," Sam pointed out when Cas was about to walk through the doors with his milkshake (which was really more milk than shake at this point. Sam wasn't sure how it wasn't gone yet.) still in hand. Castiel casted him a heartbroken look, and as he dropped it half-heartedly in the trash, Sam was fully expecting an orchestra of tiny violins to gather around him.

"You did a good thing, Castiel," Sam said, clapping him on the shoulder and twisting up his face in mock sympathy.

Castiel nodded solemnly, and Sam wasn't sure if he knew he had been joking or not.

Sam smiled brightly at the girl at the register, paying for the tickets and leading Cas to the Korean section of the ground floor, where the freaky indoor Lights had apparently appeared. Fortunately, there was only a small family of three there, so he and Cas could probably pass off as a couple of weirdos with ease.

Cas went off on his own, feeling up the walls and squinting scrutinizingly at the artifacts. Sam wandered about, glancing every now and then at the EMF meter as discreetly as possible.

Eventually the family left, and Sam and Cas were left to their business without having to worry about trying not to get reported.

"You find anything?" Sam asked after a while, because he certainly hadn't. Just like at the warehouse, there was absolutely no evidence that anything had ever happened there.

"Not exactly," Castiel responded, "but there's something familiar about this."

"Like what?"

Castiel thought for a moment, then shook his head feebly. "I can't quite place the feeling, or the memory."

"Oh, come on," came a new voice from behind them, and their heads swiveled to look at its source, "I' m hurt, Castiel, honestly, I am. I remembered you pretty well, didn't I?"

X

"This is pointless," Charlie sighed with lackluster. "We didn't even have to come back here, Dean. We aren't going to find anything."

"That's what I told you," Dean said, "but nobody wanted to listen to me. But I guess it's good to be thorough. So quit your whining, we only have one more floor to look at."

Charlie huffed and followed Dean up the rickety staircase, wincing every time once of the steps creaked under their combined weight. They got to the top, and Dean did a quick once-over, stopping when the beam of his flashlight illuminated something that had been scrawled on the wall. "Not gonna find anything, huh?" he grumbled, taking Charlie's wrist and walking them closer. Thankfully, it wasn't some kind of cryptic text. It was just a single, simple word.

"Korea," Charlie murmured, racking her memory. "Korea! That's where Sam and Cas are!"

Dean blinked. "Huh?"

"The British Museum, dumbass."

Dean's eyes widened. "Oh, shi...we have to go find them."

Charlie nodded quickly and they bounded down all the staircases, bursting out the doors into the car. Thankfully, the museum wasn't too far from the warehouse, so after speeding maybe one or two or three miles over the limit, they made it there in record time, already taking out cash to pay the receptionist as they walked in through the doors.

X

"Gabriel," Castiel stated, as if it wasn't already obvious.

Gabriel was standing there, _right there_ in front of them, smiling sadly, decisively very not dead. "Hey, baby bro."

"Sam! Cas! Are you-" Dean's question, as well as himself, came skiddering to a stop when he saw the short, scruffy man in front of them. "No," he said quietly. "No, that's not possible."

"I'm sorry to hear that you've been misinformed." Gabriel took a handful from the bag of kettle corn he was holding and stuffed it into his mouth nonchalantly.

"B-but you," Dean spluttered, "You were dead!"

Gabriel hummed and said, "Ok, I can see where you're coming from, but did you ever actually see me die?"

"Your wings," Castiel said, sounding like he fully expected Gabriel to dissipate any second now, like a hologram. "Your wings, their imprint was seared onto the ground. _Lucifer _killed you.

Gabriel winked at him. "Trickster magic."

"Does anybody care to fill me in here? I feel like the only person at a family reunion with a different last name."

Gabriel's gaze fell on Charlie and he frowned. "Who's she?"

"Charlie," Sam answered. "A friend of ours."

"And you are?" Charlie asked.

"Gabriel. Archangel."

"Oh," Charlie breathed. "Ok then." Her slightly awed expression melted away into one of anger. "Why the fuck have you been romping around setting things on fire?"

"Are we ignoring the fact that _you're dead?_"

"Deano, I'm obviously not dead, am I? And England's pretty big, little lady. I figured I'd 'romp around setting things on fire,'" he used air quotes, "so you guys would come to me. It saved me a hell of a lot of work."

"Gabriel," Castiel said softly, like he was trying to soothe a rampaging monster. "We need to talk. Why are you here?"

Gabriel's smirk disappeared, his expression suddenly gone serious. "I, uh, I need your help."

Charlie snorted. "Yeah, well, you're not really making a great first impression, are you? Why should we help you?" she said hotly.

"Charlie," Cas admonished. "Everyone, why don't we buy Gabriel a room and discuss things tomorrow?"

"I still don't get why-"

"_Charlie, _Dean said, eyes blazing with a kind of understanding that Charlie didn't quite grasp. "You heard him. We'll talk tomorrow."

"Just go with it," Sam murmured in her ear. "We didn't exactly end on a bad note, we can trust him."

Charlie ran a hand through her hair. "Yeah, ok, fine."

X Thursday X

Gabriel was told to meet them at 10:00 sharp the next morning. He remained true to this and dutifully knocked at the door at precisely 9:59, grinning beatifically when Charlie opened it. She squinted suspiciously at him, but stepped aside so he could walk in.

"How did you even afford any of this?" he asked, looking around at his surroundings.

"We'll get to that," Charlie said. "Now sit."

Gabriel obeyed, sitting on a couch that was across from where Sam, Dean, Cas, and now Charlie were seated.

"First of all," Charlie continued, "I'd like to know what the hell's going on."

The other four responded by explaining everything to her, from the endless string of Tuesdays to the Casa Erotica video. Gabriel pointedly stopped talking when they reached his death scene.

"Or at least that's what we thought had happened," Sam concluded. "But obviously, we were wrong."

The four stared expectantly at Gabriel, and he sighed. "Do you guys remember when you killed me, but you didn't actually kill _me? _Back when you still thought I was the Trickster?"

Sam and Dean nodded.

"But this was different," Castiel insisted. "Lucifer himself killed you. I saw the scorch marks! Those were _real, _Gabriel!"

Gabriel bit his lip. "Would you believe me if I said I'd been practicing to create that mirage?"

Castiel's gaze went hard. "So you fled," he stated, and through it Dean could hear the inklings of anger and disappointment.

Gabriel looked at his feet, ashamed. "I wasn't going to originally. I figured that if there was anything worth dying for, this was it, you know? But then _fuck, _I actually saw Luci, and I...I panicked, ok? I was terrified. I flittered off to Heaven with my tail between my legs and dug out my own little corner where no one would find me. I was never planning on leaving my cowardly little hideout, but then _someone _went and helped Metatron shake the tree and make all the little apples fall out."

"Don't turn this on him," Dean bit at him, and Sam noticed the way he shifted so he was stanced defensively in front of Cas, although he wasn't sure he did it consciously.

"You know I would never willingly do that," Cas growled, and Gabriel put his hands up in surrender.

"Hey, I know you wouldn't, that wasn't what I...so anyways, here I am."

"Assuming that was you doing all that stuff to get our attention," Charlie said, "how did you manage to do it if you're a fallen angel?"

"I'm an archangel, duh," Gabriel responded, as if it was no big deal. "I had a bit bigger of a power reserve than the others. My wings were seared right off, though, so I've had to travel everywhere by foot. It sucks. I don''t know how you guys stand it. I also have a depressing lack of money, so..." He peered up hopefully at them, attempting to look innocent. "That's why I came looking for you bunch. I need your help."

"Can't you just," Dean gestured randomly in the air around him, "poof money out of thin air?"

Gabriel exhaled. "Yeah, you know, I tried that. It...let's just say it didn't work out. Anyways, what are you lot even doing here? Last I checked, hunting doesn't exactly pay the bills."

"It's a long story," Dean said.

"Charlie won the lottery," Sam explained in brief. Ok, then, not so long.

Gabriel's entirety lit up. "Great! You're happy to give me a few million bucks, then?"

Charlie contemplated this. So far the fallen-ish archangel had done nothing to deter her trust. And Sam had told her he was trustworthy.

Still, she wasn't sure a guy who went around causing terror and chaos for fun was the spitting image of a great person.

She looked up to see Cas pawing through her purse. "Cas, what the hell are you doing," she called. And no, she was totally not buying the pair of shimmery blue puppy eyes he sent her.

"I'm...I assumed it would be ok to give Gabriel one of our credit cards."

"_Why?"_

"Charlie," Sam soothed. "We owe it to him. He's a good guy. He just has a bold personality."

Charlie pressed her lips together. "_Fine. _But you," she poked her finger into Gabriel's chest, "still have some trust-earning to do."

Gabriel nodded, watching with wide, greedy eyes as Castiel returned with a platinum credit card, practically salivatating.

Cas presented the card and he snatched it from him hungrily, looking at them all in turn with a look of utmost gratitude. "Thank you. Really."

"No problem," Sam said. "Consider it recompense."

Gabriel smiled. "Yeah."

"What are you planning on doing with it, anyways?" Charlie challenged.

"I was thinking I would buy a little apartment or something. I fell over in France, and I'm kind of beginning to settle there."

Cas arched an eyebrow. "You're settling," he echoed.

"Yeah, sure, why not. I met a girl, I have my own little shop, stuff like that."

"That...that doesn't seem very much like you."

Gabriel reached out to grab Cas's arm and pull him to him. "Yeah, and it's so like you to fall for some human, hmm?" he uttered.

Castiel's glare sharpened, obviously to compensate for surprise or embarrassment or both.

"No, no, wait." Gabriel pressed a finger to Cas's lips. "I ain't saying it's a bad thing. I'm happy for you, actually. The girly feelings flowing between you two is disgusting; me and a few others were wondering when you were finally gonna get it on."

Castiel kicked a nonexistent stone on the ground. "It...it isn't..."

Gabriel tilted his head. "Wait, you two aren't...?"

"_No._"

Someone cleared their throat, tired of listening to the hushed, intangible conversation.

Castiel huffed and tore himself from Gabriel's grasp, taking his place beside Dean and ignoring his brother's gaze when he waggled his eyebrows suggestively at them.

"Sibling rivalry?" Dean inquired knowingly, smiling in that stupid way that illuminated his eyes with his face.

"Something like that," Castiel muttered back, and the sun chose that precise moment to pour in through the window, and it struck Dean in the worst possible way; it embossed the gold in his hair and the spattering of freckles across his face.

And Castiel hated it.

He was also overcome with the swelling urge to press up against it on the nearest wall.

_Human emotions._

Gabriel tossed the credit card in the air and caught it again, grinning broadly. "Thanks, guys. I mean it."

Sam returned the smile. "No problem. Good luck."

"Mhmm. Well, I'll see ya." He waved and then he was gone, closing the door behind him.

X Friday X

He wasn't gone, actually. The group decided to travel all the way out to Stonehedge the next day, and Cas was lecturing an avidly listening Sam about the _real _story behind the place when Gabriel just kind of appeared and slung an arm around Cas's shoulder. Castiel grumbled in irritation at him, and Gabriel laughed big, retrieving his arm.

"I thought you said you were leaving," Sam said.

Gabriel popped an M&M into his mouth and shrugged. "Eh, I figured I'd stick around a little longer, and grace you all with my wonderful presence."

"Oh, how kind of you," Charlie bit, and Gabriel took on a darker expression.

"Ok, that's it, _what is your problem with me?"_

Charlie stopped for a moment, not sure if she could answer the question herself. She couldn't quite pinpoint why she thought so strongly of Gabriel, she just...did. Something about the way he presented himself pissed her off. She glared at him as a response, hoping in a small corner of her mind that maybe he'd grow on her as he obviously had her companions. Kind of like a tumor.

"All right, girls, break it up," Dean chided, stationing himself between the clashing glares. "We almost done here, or is Sam still busy nerdgasming?" He stared pointedly to where Sam was happily snapping polaroids of every angle he could reach, smiling when it printed out and he put it in a case entitled "_Memories," _the sentimental sap.

"Wait!" Sam called out, jogging to them with the camera necklaced. "Gabriel, can you take a picture of us?"

Gabriel nodded and took the camera from him, despite Dean's "Is it _really _necessary to take picture everywhere we go?" and gestured for them to take their places in front of the historical structure. He clicked the button once and waved them over when it started printing out. Sam took it, and when they got back to the hotel later that night, he would place it by his bedside before he went to sleep.

X Saturday X

Dean's imagination was a traitorous, treacherous creature of evil.

He learned this when Gabriel and Castiel had decided to go out for a little brotherly bonding or whatever, and he wasn't really planning on going anywhere, so taking an early shower, wouldn't hurt, right?

Wrong.

Because he also decided that it wouldn't hurt to spend some quality time with his right hand, which admittedly wasn't entirely out of the ordinary for him.

What _was _entirely out of the ordinary, though, was when he was formulating the ideal image of a girl in his mind's eye-blonde curls, hourglass body shape, cocoa-butter skin. He started focusing on the blueness of her eyes her eyes and his first thought was, _Eh, I've seen bluer._

The image of the woman immediately dissipated, the subject of thoughts being replaced with someone _entirely _different.

In his hazy state of mind, he couldn't help but wonder if Castiel would be one to cry out derangedly in pleasure, or if he would be quieter, whimpering softly into the curve of Dean's neck when he came.

He wondered what it would be like to look down and see the pair of pink, wetly swollen lips wrapped around him, circling the head of his cock with his tongue and gently scraping his teeth along the underside of it.

Dean quickened his pace, throwing his head back against the tile wall and entangling his other hand in the shower curtain.

He came when not-Cas peered up at him surreptitiously, flicking out his tongue to taste the bit of white dribbling down his chin, and the sheer intensity of his orgasm had him spasming in a way that _never _happened when it was just him, and that led him to speculate what he would feel if Cas was actually there with him.

Which, no no no, he was so not going down that road of possibility.

As he watched the evidence of what he had just done disappear down the drain, he had one single, resounding thought:

_Fuck, I am so screwed._

X

"...Where are we going?"

"I dunno. Any suggestions?"

"I didn't even want to go with you to begin with."

"Sheesh, Cas, you never were one for family bonding time, huh?"

"No," Cas answered simply.

An uncomfortable silence settled over them, like dust, and Gabriel had to constantly drum his fingers on the steering wheel or whistle until Cas snapped at him to shut up to distract himself from it.

Finally, after a dreadful half hour, it occurred to Gabriel that he was missing the entire point of why he had dragged Castiel with him in the first place.

So he just went out and said it.

"I'm sorry."

Cas looked up at him from where he was playing with his thumbs; blinked a few times. "I'm sorry?"

Gabriel sighed and parked the car on the side of the street. "Yeah."

"For what, exactly?"

"I fucked up."

Castiel smiled, and it was a tiny lip-quirk of a thing, but it was the most Gabriel had seen in a while. His head pounded with hope for forgiveness as Cas continued, "I was never angry at you. Disappointed, yes, it was a very cowardice thing to do."

Gabriel hung his head.

"Do you know how much easier it would have been to have you by my side during the war _I _led? How much I _needed _that help? And where were you when I made the idiotic decision of taking all of Purgatory into myself? Were you ever even aware that I did that?"

"Yes," Gabriel muttered quietly.

"I _needed _that guidance, Gabriel. I regret so much of what I've done over the past five years. And you...you're an archangel! You're not allowed to just hide in the corner while the entire world goes to hell!"

Gabriel winced. "Not angry, huh?"

Castiel tilted his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. "I feel better now."

Gabriel snorted. "Yeah, well, I don't. I...I'll make it up to you, ok?"

Cas opened one eye. "How?"

Gabriel beamed at him. "By being the Dean to your Sam and not abandoning you again, yeah?" He threw his arm around Castiel's shoulders and squeezed him to him.

Castiel made no effort to escape the forced embrace. "I'd like that," he said softly.

X Sunday X

"Alright, guys, I'm gone for real this time." Gabriel winked and shrugged on his jacket. "I'll be sure to visit you guys though, ok? Especially over the next few weeks. There are quite a few countries that are pretty fun to mess around in."

Sam, Charlie, and Castiel waved their goodbyes at him and Gabriel began to walk out the door. Then he stopped, as if his feet had suddenly been bolted to the floor. "Oh," he said. "And Cas, honey, give me a call when you and Dean start fucking, ok? I know this _great _lube brand-"

"Ok, that's enough, bye!" Sam pushed him through the remainder of the doorway.

Dean came into the room, hair still wet from a shower, face flushed in a way that Charlie preferred not to think about. Until the blush brightened when he looked at Cas and he cleared his throat, that was.

Dean glanced from the smirking Charlie to the grimacing Sam to the blushing and irritated Castiel, unable to stop the thought that there was something going on there that he hadn't quite caught on to yet.


	4. Chapter 3

X Tuesday X

A shirt.

Dean had one of the most mind-shattering, ground-breaking realizations of his entire life because of a fucking _shirt. _

The Italian sky was a rosy shade of pink above them, the orange light of the setting sun spilling out onto the street they were walking along to get back to the car. The group was full from a meal at the restaurant they were just at, and were now exhausted and eager to get back home, jet lag and all that.

Because they had priorly decided that it would be nice and scenic to park a long way away from the restaurant, they were forced to take a break at a roadside bench. Dean took one single, innocent glance at Castiel, trying to pretend that he _totally did not _paint the shower curtain to him the night before.

And despite himself, the world around him blurred because a thought that had never occurred to him was striking him like a bolt of lightning and taking a sledgehammer to his knees.

_Holy shit, he's gorgeous._

Because Cas was sitting there next to him, not even doing a damned single thing, but the sunlight was burnishing his hair a rich, dark brown and dancing like iridescence along his skin, effectively sharpening his every feature, from the jut of bone in his wrist to his cheekbones and stubble to the blazing blue of his eyes.

But what was more was the fact that he was wearing _Dean's shirt_.

And it shouldn't have affected Dean in the way it did, because all he used to do was wear the Winchesters' clothes. But no, this was different, because Cas had his own wardrobe now, and had absolutely no reason to wear Dean's fucking clothes. And it was so damn endearing that his original thread of thought (which was ridiculous enough as it was) went spiraling out of control, rapidly flashing and molding to a find a word, _any _word to match the feeling smoldering through his veins. The end result sent Dean reeling, the word that had been singled out swirling like a mantra in his every nerve, in his entirety.

_Holy shit, I'm in love with him._

Charlie whistled abruptly and snapped her fingers in his face. "Christ, Dean, you ok there? You look like you just had an epiphany."

In that same moment, Dean composed himself, realizing that he was probably staring dumbly at Cas like a soap opera actor. He smiled, hoping it wasn't shaky enough for her to be able to see through. "Nope. I'm fine. Let's go."

X

The thing about being in love with Cas was that he didn't really know what to _do _with it. There was a sudden increase of sexual frustration, sure, but it was a hell of a lot more than that now.

It wasn't as if he hadn't been "in love" before. But when he was with Cassie, he had been young and stupid; it was an immature inkling of an emotion compared to the feeling that was suffocating him now. And Lisa had been great and everything, but he didn't think he'd actually ever _loved _her. He was hungry for that domesticity and fulfilling his brother's dying wish. And, well, he was in a really dark place, and Lisa and Ben made him happy.

Cas, though...Cas was something entirely different. Dean didn't even know what territory he was on anymore. Because Cas was _Cas, _his best friend for nearly more years than what could be counted on one hand, his comrade in war, the guy who crashed into his life with the audacity of a hurricane and told him that he deserved to be saved. He was the...

Ah, fuck.

Cas was the love of his life.

And yeah, ok, that was probably the cheesiest thing that had ever crossed his mind, and possibly the most terrifying. But the scariest part was that Cas hadn't just suddenly struck him with a cupid's bow earlier that evening. No, he had been feeling it for _so long now, _but it had always been an intangible mess of emotion that bubbled up in his throat every so often and was then promptly swallowed back down.

And now that he had finally allowed it to claw its way out, every particle in his body was singing with it, and he was drowning.

Drowning in the fact that his poor little atoms probably weren't ever going to find that one duet partner they cried out for so loudly.

Dean sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face with a hand. Yeah, that was just his luck, wasn't it? Falling for the confusing as fuck and probably asexual fallen angel.

_It's probably for the best that there's no way he feels the same way, _he would tell himself later that night when he tried (and failed) to sleep. _Everyone always leaves anyway._

X Wednesday X

If Charlie or Sam noticed the blotches of purple under his eyes the next morning, they didn't say anything.

But Castiel did, the hyperaware bastard.

They hadn't really planned out what they were going to do while they were in Italy, so they all headed to Charlie's to discuss it.

"You don't look like you got much sleep last night," Cas noted idly whilst he was poured over a pamphlet Charlie had given him to look at.

"Nah, it was just one of those nights, that's all." Dean hoped sincerely that he got the whole nonchalant vibe across, but when everyone collectively raised their eyebrows at him, he recognized the fact that he had failed miserably. "Jus' have a lot on my mind."

"Are you sure you're-"

"Charlie. Drop it," he snapped at her.

"Oh, right, sorry, I forgot. You're far too superior to us to do such a vulnerable and lowly thing like talking about your feelings. Wow, Dean, congratulations, you really are a real man."

Dean chose not to respond to that, but the room grew increasingly uncomfortable with the silence.

"Ok, so." Sam cleared his throat and stood up, trying to ignore the fact that Dean and Charlie were throwing death glares at each other. "I'm pretty sure I've got a pretty good plan for the week."

The tension entwined between them didn't magically dissipate as Sam started talking, but Dean and Charlie seemed to silently agree to call a truce, and that was it.

X

Because Dean belonged to a family of nerds (hell, he himself was one in certain areas), Sam wanted to have his share of historical tours first.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was actually pretty interesting, though.

And on a side note, Dean decided when Castiel was speaking to the tour guide that multilinguistics were definitely a kink of his.

He wasn't quite sure how he'd make it out of France alive.

"Y'know," Charlie murmured as their guide began to enthusiastically gesture toward a bell. She was speaking in Italian, so none of them really had any idea what she was saying, but Castiel seemed intrigued enough. "When I was in high school, I wanted to be an architect. Places like this really inspired me."

"You?" Dean asked dubiously.

"I could actually see you as an architect," Sam mused.

Charlie ran her fingers along one of the pillars. "Yeah. I still think it would be pretty fun."

"Then why don't you go for it?" Sam asked earnestly, and Charlie gave a weary shrug.

"I dunno, it's kind of unrealistic at this point. I'd have to go back to school and everything, and I guess I'm happy where I'm at now."

Sam gathered her into a giant bear hug, and Charlie laughed happily, returning the action. Dean couldn't really help but stare at them and the big, goofy smiles on their faces. They were happy.

Happy.

The word sounded foreign in Dean's mind, but when the two forced him and Cas into an awkward group hug, he didn't doubt the honesty of it.

If God hadn't turned out to be a dick, he's probably be thanking Him for Charlie's jackpot. They'd needed this more than they'd known.

"The group's leaving without us!" Charlie alerted them suddenly, already jogging to catch up.

X

"Ooh, what do you think about this one?" Charlie held the small glass snow globe up to Dean's face, the little flakes of white swirling around a miniature replica of the Leaning Tower.

"It's very nice, Charlie," Castiel replied in place of Dean from where he was looking curiously at a rack of keychains.

They'd found a small, cheesy little gift shop that was obviously meant for foreign tourists on the drive back to the hotel, and of course Charlie insisted that they stop by it, seeing as she was determined to get at least one souvenir from each country they visited along with Sam's escapade of pictures.

Dean, despite Charlie's multiple offers, never got anything, namely because he didn't really see the point in it. Being able to revisit the memories was enough for him. Castiel, to Dean's surprise, seemed to have the same idea about the whole ordeal, besides the journal he had gotten. Dean belatedly wondered how he was doing with that.

He glanced over at Cas, who was kindly telling a confused American how to read an Italian map. He also directed him to where they were selling translation booklets on the other side of the store. The small, patient smile he was wearing was a good look on him.

So was the deep blue shirt that clung to his biceps a size too small.

The fleeting thought, surprisingly, didn't startle Dean after years of repressing the attraction. It flowed easily through his brain like a frivolous thought about the weather.

In all seriousness though, the shirt would've looked better on Dean's bedroom floor.

X Thursday X

_Just _when the group had thought that their week might have been able to pass without any major conflicts.

They were at another restaurant after spending the day enjoying the gushing waters of Cascata delle Marmore. Everything had been going great until Castiel brought out a newspaper whose headline had apparently caught his eye earlier.

About five minutes in, Castiel dropped the newspaper on the table with a quiet "Oh."

"What is it?" Charlie demanded as the other two tried to get a good look at the paper, even though, hello, Italian.

"There's been multiple killings," Castiel put them out of their misery, "at a church in Venice."

"That's not too far away." If Sam was fazed by this news, he didn't show it. "I'd say it's about a five hour drive from Rome, where we are now."

Charlie groaned and said, "Oh, is that all?"

"What are the killings looking like?" Sam inquired.

"Wild animal attacks," Castiel replied. "Fairly brutal ones, actually. They're saying that each victim looks as though a wild dog tore them apart. The police aren't sure what to blame yet."

"Wild dog attacks in the middle of Venice?" Charlie asked, incredulous.

"That's what they're saying, yes." Castiel folded the paper and slid it in his coat pocket.

"So what are our idea so far?" Dean gave a credit card to the waiter when he came over and sent him off. "Werewolf, maybe? Or something like it?" 

Castiel shook his head. "These killings have no pattern; for a lycanthrope, they'd have to be at night during a full moon. And besides that, it's very unlikely to find a werewolf in Italy." He thought for a moment, head tilted to the side as he racked his mind through the trillion year old archive that resided in it. "Although I can't think of any wolflike creatures that could be found anywhere near where we are."

"We'll check it out tomorrow?" Dean suggested, and the others seemed compliable to that. Sam offered to do some research before he went to bed, and they were off.

X Friday X

When Dean had suggested that they inspect the church the next day, he definitely had _not _meant actually attending the church service.

But alas, there he was, right in the front row with his head bowed and Cas beside him. Sam and Charlie had wanted to drive around the city and interrogate a few select people. They seemed to pair off a lot lately, like they purposefully wanted to leave him to deal with his inappropriate feelings for Castiel alone.

However, whereas Dean had been expecting a long, languid hour with a priest that droned on and on like an elderly robot, he was slightly surprised by who the priest actually turned out to be. The man, who was probably around sixty-five, talked in vibrant tones and flamboyant hand gestures, and while Dean wasn't understanding a word he said, apparently he was pretty funny too because every once in a while he'd say something and a ripple of laughter would omit from the audience.

Everything was all good and merry until he spotted Dean and Cas in their row.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "E voi due!"

"Uh," Dean stuttered illiterately, looking over at Cas for help.

Cas, who looked equally confused when he tilted his head and inquired, "Sì?"

"La coppia di voi sono un perfetto esempio di questo amore puro che ho parlato, non è vero? "

The crowd burst into hushed whispers at the the same time Castiel's eyes widened inhumanly.

"Dean e io? No, per niente. Siamo molto amici."

It was the priest's turn to be embarrassed now.

"Oh! Mi dispiace tanto. Il mio errore." He turned around, looking like he was about to return to his pedestal, but then he paused, peering at the two over his shoulder. "Mi dispiace davvero. E 'solo che l'emozione e la devozione che scorre tra i due di voi è assolutamente notevole."

"E 'ok. Suppongo che per me l'amore non è una parola così inverosimile quando si tratta di lui. Ne abbiamo passate tante insieme." The crowd "aww"'d and Cas blushed, and dammit, Dean wanted to know what was going on.

"What the hell was that?" he murmured later when the priest continued his speech.

"Nothing," Cas answered a beat too swiftly, refusing to establish eye contact.

"You know I'm not going to leave you alone."

"I've been around you for a while. I think I'm kind of confident in my abilities to endure it."

"Dick," Dean grumbled, and Cas ground the tip of his dress shoe into Dean's shin. "Ow! What the fuck was that for?" Apparently this outburst was a bit too loud, because the woman sitting on the other side of him leered disapprovingly. He gave her his patented Winchester smile in hopes of alleviating her irritation.

He didn't think it worked.

The remaining fifteen minutes passed without any more confrontation, even though Cas continued to blatantly refuse to tell him what the priest had said.

They met up with Sam and Charlie at a bench.

The _bench, _Dean thought disdainfully. Maybe even with a twinge of fondness.

When they got there, Cas sat on the bench.

And Dean sat next to him.

Even if Castiel had absolutely no idea what metaphorical value the action held.

"You guys find anything?" Charlie asked, and Dean and Cas shrugged helplessly.

"Yeah, neither did we at first," Sam admitted. "So we stopped by a library and did some research on the computers. There was this thing called a scylla in Italy in ancient history, and it lived by the water and had twelve dog heads protruding from its stomach. It was killed, according to mythology, but it's possible it was an alpha."

"Highly likely, actually," Castiel agreed. "And it _is _Italian lore. I suggest we look more into it tomorrow."

X Saturday X

As usual, Sam was right. The thing murdering people was, indeed, a kind of descendant of the ancient Italian monster.

What _was _surprising was when an elderly man that Dean recalled from the service met them backstage.

And then a naked woman proceeded to tear its way out of him so his skin blistered and tore and slid to the ground in a wet pile of external organ.

"Oh, well, that's just lovely," Charlie quipped nervously, cautiously stepping backwards.

The scylla hissed at them and began to weave about six hounds of shadowy consistency into the air next to her. They surged forward, effectively knocking Dean to the ground. He heard someone-Sam, maybe-call his name before the weight of the dog was alleviated from on top of him only to be replaced seconds later by the monster, all actual humanoid breasts and back and ass.

"Ohh, I _like _you, Dean Winchester," she purred, in English, grating her hips against his. Someone called out his name again, but was quickly cut off by a wolfish growl.

The ordeal seemed to stop around him for a moment as Dean considered the fact that two or so years ago his lower half would be in autopilot by now, especially because, well, the monster was really freaking hot, regardless of the whole scylla thing.

He took a look at Castiel, who was bloody and sweaty as he helped Charlie fend off a group of the dogs. And even if he wasn't Dean's ideal image of what he usually went after, the emotion broiling in his gut was enough to make the womanly anatomy on top of him seem as unattractive as the like poles of a magnet.

"I've heard that you've got a bit of a lust problem," she was whispering.

Dean leaned up to mutter back, "Yeah, I do, actually. Unfortunately for you, it's pretty exclusive to one person right now."

And with that, he shoved one hand into his jean pocket and slid the knife he found there across her throat.

She made a few gurgling sounds, went glassy-eyed, and tumbled off of him. The hounds dissipated like smoke into the air, leaving the remaining group inhaling relieved breaths.

"Well," Dean said, standing up and wiping the blood slathered on his hands on his thighs. "She ws really stupid."

"Maybe not," Charlie mused. "You do seem to be the type of person to be easily..._distracted._"

Easily distracted by the way Cas's shirt rode up to reveal his pale, slim hipbones when he reached his arms up to stretch them, maybe.

X Sunday X

_IcandothisIcandothisIcandothis._

He stood at Sam's door, knuckles hovering inches away from the cement. It _was _his own brother, right? The one he went to Hell for?

Yeah, he could _definitely _talk to him about the whole 'Cas thing' as he so affectionately liked to call it.

He bit his lip and took his hand away from the door.

_C'mon Dean, _one side of him urged. _It's _Sam. _He'll be able to give good advice, the therapeutic little shit. Plus, this is huge, and you and I both know that you don't have the emotional capacity to handle it on your own._

His fist rose to the door again.

_Don't you dare! _his other self scolded. _He'll judge you! He'll laugh in your face!_

Dean considered this for a moment. "Nah, that's not Sammy," he murmured to himself eventually.

He knocked.

Sam opened the door, his mane of hair frazzled from bed. He yawned and blinked sleepily. "Dean, what the fuck, it's 2:00 AM."

Dean swallowed. He _could _do this, just so long as Sam didn't pull out the herbal tea. "I, uh. I wanna talk to you."

Sam lifted an eyebrow. "Why? You find another case?"

Dean kicked at the floor and exhaled. "No, it's, you know. Internal conflict."

Sam's eyes widened almost comically, sleep apparently all forgotten when he stated, "_You _want to talk about feelings."

"Well, when you say it like that-"

"Shut up and come inside." Sam stepped aside to let Dean through. Sam's room didn't really differ much from his own, save for the post-board of polaroids.

"So, what's up?" Sam sat in the armchair across from the couch Dean had chosen.

Now that he was actually presented with the question, Dean had absolutely no fucking idea how to phrase anything. "So, uh, you know Cas?" he tried, wincing a little bit when it dawned on him that he was actually going to have to say this and talk about it. Like, out loud.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Dean. I know Cas."

"Well, he, um. I-_fuck._" Dean groaned, frustrated, and rubbed his face with his hands. He wouldn't say it. He _couldn't._

"Dean, it's okay," Sam soothed smoothly. "Just say it. All at once."

"Anyone ever tell you you'd be a nice councilor?"

"_Dean._"

"All right, all right, don't get your panties all bunched up, Samantha."

Sam ran a hand through his already mussed hair. "Do I need to remind you that _you're _the one who came to _me?_"

"No," Dean grumbled childishly, looking at his feet.

"So then just say it. Chances are I already know exactly what this is about."

"No, trust me, you don't." Dean laughed humorlessly, trying to withdraw the net courage from his every cell and shoving it into his voice box.

"I'm in love with Castiel." The words poured from his mouth without his full consent, like a river gushing through a dam that was supposed to be pretty damn strong.

Sam did a curious thing then. He stood up, waltzed over to Dean, and threw his big, giant bear arms around him.

"What the _hell, _Sam."

"That's great, Dean," Sam beamed happily. Honestly, Dean wasn't sure how _he _was the one who ended up being the gayer of the two. He sighed.

"Please, Sam, explain to me how my totally unreciprocated schoolboy feelings are-"

"No, not that. I mean that's great too, trust me, but it's great that you've finally admitted it to yourself."

Dean blinked at him. "Huh?"

Sam gave a lopsided grin. "I think you've loved him for a few years now. And I think _he's _loved you since he first pulled you out of Hell."

"..._huh?_"

Sam, apparently finished with his eccentric bravado, sat down again. "Basically, you should tell him."

"You think I should-Sam, are you _insane? _I can't do anything about this. It'll pass eventually."

"And if it doesn't?" Sam demanded. "What if Cas is really it for you?"

Dean opened his mouth to argue, but closed it promptly after, because holy shit, what if Sam was right?

"Exactly," Sam said triumphantly. "Now really, what makes you think it's unreciprocated?"

"Because, well, I dunno. I mean, we're both dudes." At Sam's unimpressed eyebrow arch he added, "Besides, he's kind of my best friend, and I'm pretty sure those never work out."

"Maybe not, but how will you know if you never give it a chance?"

Once again, Dean was left argumentless.

"Now go the fuck back to your room, I'm exhausted. And sleep on it, ok?" Sam pushed him out the door as he said this, slamming the door in his face and forcing Dean to head back to his own bed, still reeling both physically and emotionally.

And, surprisingly, Dean actually did sleep on it.


End file.
